OXFORD — Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School has met adequate yearly progress by improving SAT scores, the Oxford Hills School District Board of Directors learned Monday.

That means the school is off a list of schools that have failed to meet state standards, High School Principal Ted Moccia said.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2002, adequate yearly progress measures the proportion of students who achieve state benchmarks of academic proficiency.

Curriculum Director Kathy Elkins told the school board Monday that the high school was not able to make AYP as a whole in reading, but under the Safe Harbor program it has met the AYP requirements.

The Safe Harbor credit makes scoring allowances based on the number of students receiving special education and the number of economically disadvantaged students if there is more than a 10 percent increase of students who passed the test this year.

In math, the school as a whole met AYP without the credit.

Moccia said 17 students were given alternative tests and 17 either met or exceeded standards.

“This speaks volumes for what we are doing,” he said. In math, 16 of the 17 met or exceeded standards.

In 2006, the Maine Department of Education mandated that all third-year high school students take the SAT in place of the weeklong Maine Education Assessment. The move was part of a statewide education reform strategy.

In 2007, the district joined 70 of 118 schools statewide that did not meet the standards. At that time, 37 percent of high school juniors failed to make AYP in reading and 41 percent failed to reach the benchmark in math.

The high school students had met AYP in both math and reading under the Maine Education Assessment.

School officials say they have worked hard over the past two years to raise student test scores by implementing a series of instructional initiatives including expansion of literacy and math instruction.

Maine is the only state that requires all 11th-graders to take the SAT — an idea that has not been supported by school officials.

When the testing was implemented, Department of Education officials said the purpose was to encourage all students to attain college and high-level workplace readiness, and to measure academic achievement.

School officials contend that the MEA shows student achievement but that the SAT is a college readiness test.

[email protected]